Solidarity with the Sparks!

National and international solidarity campaign with electrical engineers in the UK, who in recent months have been forced to organise in response to attacks from the 8 bigger employers in the industry.

Last summer these 8 firms announced their intention to leave the agreement on pay (the JIB) that governs the industry. The workers expect wage cuts of up to 35% and the deterioration of their working conditions. These workers are already required, with their low wages, to perform overtime in order to provide for their families.

It is not an isolated attack on a particular occupation in an individual country. It’s well known that these firms are supported by all firms in the building industry, some of which are multinational.

National and international solidarity campaign

Solidarity with the Sparks!

In recent months British electrical engineers have been forced to organise in response to attacks from the 8 bigger employers in the industry.

Last summer these 8 firms announced their intention to leave the agreement on pay (the JIB) that governs the industry.

The workers expect wage cuts of up to 35% and the deterioration of their working conditions. These workers are already required, with their low wages, to perform overtime in order to provide for their families.

It is not an isolated attack on a particular occupation in an individual country. It’s well known that these firms are supported by all firms in the building industry, some of which are multinational.

It is hard for the moment to organise general strike action but regular pickets in front of site have been organised. These pickets with 200 or 300 workers function to build struggle and to bring together the workers from different firms. Moreover, as everywhere in the world, on construction sites union activity has declined and the division of the workers (onto different statuses) has proved a barrier.

But struggles is growing and a Win is possible if the electricians do not do not stay isolated locally and nationally. The British electricians need help from their comrades in the British trade union movement and all the workers from the whole world to fight against this attack. It is well known that attacks against British union movement in 1980s acts served as a test for the entire international bourgeoisie. 2

The destruction of the agreement of the English electricians could be exported in other industries across the world. To answer of their financial crisis, the capitalists wait only for a sign to act.

For the workers of Building industry this is an opportunity to show their unity, beyond jobs and national borders.

To build this solidarity’s we propose:

To inform and to mobilise the workers of these 8 firms, on the construction sites of our respective countries.

To adopt and move motions of support in our labour unions and on construction sites to circulate information between the workers.

To ask our union federations to organize a financial solidarity with our British friends.

You can send your protest to the firms or search subsidiaries in your country ( see before)

RSS and atom feeds allow you to keep track of new comments on particular stories. You can input the URL's from these links into a rss reader and you will be informed whenever somebody posts a new comment. hide help

Friday June 12ths shock closure of the iconic Clery’s department store in Dublin shows how the law is set up to favour capital and screw workers. Workers are being told there may be no additional redundancy or owed holiday payments as the company is in debt. But this is only the case because right before the closure the largest asset, the building itself, was separated off from the accumulated debts. This was almost certainly legal under our system but of such obvious dubious morality that the workers could expect massive popular support if they occupied the building on a permanent ongoing basis.

Around 50 people attended a lunch time vigil today organised by the Belfast Trade and District Council. A range of political organisations and unions attended including the Independent Workers Union, the WSM and Organise! During the rally one speaker from the council also referred to the police being workers too. This will provide little comfort to working people on the receiving end of state violence and terror. As our comrades from the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front note, ‘The role of the police is to repress and silence the working class and poor. This problem cannot be fixed by commissions or enquiries – as some people think. Ask the family of Andries Tatane. It cannot be changed by elections. Remember: Sharpeville 1960, Soweto 1976, Uitenhague 1985, Michael Makhabane in 2000, SAMWU workers in 2009, Andries Tatane in 2011 … Marikana 2012. At least 25 protestors and strikers were killed from 2000, before Marikana.’

With the announcement today by the TEEU and Unite that they are urging a No vote in the forthcoming Fiscal Compact Referendum allied to the fact that Mandate announced a similar position yesterday a clear division is emerging between the leading trade unions. SIPTU has basically offer its support for the treaty in return for a funded job creation plan, this is basically the union leadership buying time before it falls in line with Labour and calls for a yes vote.

WSM members & supporters in northern Ireland will be providing live coverage of the N30 Pension strikes today via our Twitter feed. The strike is part of the UK wide public sector strike against attacks on public sector pensions, attacks similar to those imposed on public sector workers in southern Ireland over the last couple of years. They are part of a Europe wide offensive against the pensions rights of workers.

In what is clearly a concerted effort to smash their union organisation, over 170 Aer Lingus cabin crew have been ‘removed from the payroll’ by management in a dispute about rostering arrangements in the Irish airline.

Since the middle of January civil and public servants have engaged in a work-to-rule in an attempt to force a reversal of the pay cuts announced by the government in the December budget. Across the country workers in government offices, colleges, schools, hospitals etc. are taking action, which they hope will result in a change of government policy.

Members of WSM and Organise gathered on a bright afternoon light of a cold Janaury day, in the leafy surburbs of Booterstown, Dublin, outside the German Embassy to protest recent Berlin District Court Decision to stop the Free Workers Union (FAU - Freie Arbeiterinnen- und Arbeiter-Union) from being able to call itself a Union.

On the 24th of November something extraordinary happened in Ireland. Some 250,000 workers acted together in a day-long strike against the public sector wage cuts planned by the government. The vast majority of these workers had never gone on strike before, yet across almost all workplaces the strike involved 90% or more of those working.

We have to ask ourselves how we have found ourselves in unions where the leadership was allowed take such an approach. And we have to work out how we create unions that we control and which will help us organise together to defend our common interests. How has it come to this?

The government says if we Vote no to Croke Park they will impose it anyway. Many of the union leadership try and scare us into voting Yes with this threat and by saying the only alternative is strike action. Both are right. If we just vote no than the government will attack us. And when they do the only way we can win is if we are willing to fight back - that will mean industrial action. It will almost certainly mean at least the credible threat of an indefinite strike.

Irish trade union leadership have agreed an austerity programme for public sector workers. WSM is arguing against this deal. This article gives some of the details and our arguments against this attack on workers. [Italiano] [Français]

Many trade union activists have known for years that “social partnership” comes at a huge price for union independence and the ability of trade unions to defend the interest of their members. The myth that government and employers on one side and workers on the other side have some form of common interest has been peddled for over twenty years. This has resulted in a trade union movement whose leadership seems incapable of independent thought and whose membership has been browbeaten into accepting pay cuts, ‘pension levies’ and various attacks on our working conditions and living standards over the past couple of years.

Anarchist organisation Workers Solidarity Movement has congratulated public sector workers who took part in today’s 24-hour work stoppage and called for further stoppages “in order to force a change of direction from the government”.

The IWW is fighting a major campaign against the centralisation and cuts within England's National Blood service. This release relates the latest phase of the wobbly campaign, which aims to reverse the plans.